Blogs from Whitsundays, Queensland, Australia, Oceania - page 46

Having left 'Maggies' under threat from Cyclone Jim, we had our fingers crossed for good weather on our Whitsundays trip. Luckily, although it rained at Airlie Beach as soon as we got off the bus, two days later we woke up on the day of departure to brilliant sunshine. Our chosen performance yacht was called Freight Train, a former winner of the Sydney - Hobart yacht race, and would be our home for three days and two nights. Designed for racing, the sleeping arrangments were ...snug best describes it, and with eight people in the forward compartment pretty hot too. Our skipper Mick gave us a breifing as we motored out of Airlie Beach marina, warning us of vegemite fines for infringements of his rules! Now of course brilliant sunshine doesn't always mean great sailing, so ... read more

Returned from sailing on the British Defender with trenchfoot. It was a little wet to say the least, but the scenery was still spectacular (well, when I could see it through the mist and clouds) and we had a real weatherbeaten skipper (cross between Croc Dundee and Steve Urwin but not as cheerful) who stalked about the 80-foot boat wearing a battered old wax jacket. Did some grinding (not coffee, but that manic twirling thing you see proper sailors do to winch the sail the last 10%). We did a lot of proper tipping over sailing, i.e. mast at 45 degrees with the low side of the boat underwater most of the time, and the 25 of us all hanging on for dear life on the high side. There were times when I thought that it ... read more

The mad traveling has officially begun. After an early morning wake-up call in AUckland to catch a 7am flight to Brisbane, there was no other option but an 18 hour busride up north to the Whitsunday Islands. I boarded the bus at noon and arrived at 6am just in time to watch the Airle Beach McDonalds open business for the day. I would have thought that after such brutal travel, a day on the beach would be totall necessary, but being that it was technically my first day in Australia, I was eager to book passage on the first boat leaving port. The British Defender is a high tech Whitbread Around The World Racing Maxi that was raced by the British Armed Services during the 1989/90 Around The World Race. Today, it hosts sun hungry tourists ... read more

We hung out in Airlie Beach for a couple days anticipating our sailing trip around the Whitsundays. We crossed paths with Helen, Julia & Ashtona and got to hang out with them which was really fun! They had a fantastic time on their trip so it made us all the more excited! We boarded ship and the sailboat itself was amazing & pretty big. Our schedule for the next three days was basically being lazy on the sailboat while sailing to the most beautiful beaches I've ever seen mixed in with some snorkeling. Can't beat it! All of our favorite beach was Whitehaven, it was so beautiful, absolutely indescribable. We were all really sad when we had to leave the boat because this trip was all of our favorites so far!!... read more

The boat was officially buggered so we just spent this morning crawling back to Airlie Beach! We put the sails up and i was in charge of navigating/working the rudder, and thankfully managed not to crash us into anything. It was killing my arm after about 5 mins but i managed to do it for about an hour and made Lucy take lots of cheesy photos of me pretending i knew what i was doing. It was a shame to say goodbye to the others, and also we were missing out on the group night out as we were getting the bus at 8pm, but i have to say it was quite nice to be back on dry land as feeling sea sick is exactly like having a hangover and we'd all been suffering a bit. ... read more